Headlines

David Ignatius

No, really: Afghan society is improving

The most obvious change is urbanization. Close to half the population now lives in cities and towns. Kabul is a city of 5 million people, and the populations of Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar have all tripled in the past decade. This urbanization weakens ethnic and tribal affiliations and helps women get access to jobs and education.

While still primitive in some rural areas, the country is also getting plugged into the global grid. More than 20 million people, or two-thirds of the country, now have access to mobile phones, up from zero a decade ago. Saad Mohseni, who runs MOBY Group, the country’s biggest media company, estimates that 60 percent of the population watches some television each week, and nearly 95 percent has access to radio.

The billions that America pumped into the country helped foster corruption, to be sure, but the money didn’t all vanish into bank accounts in Dubai. Gross domestic product per capita has increased nearly fivefold since 2002, with an annual growth rate of about 9 percent. Only 18 percent of the population has access to reliable electrical power, but that’s triple what it was a decade ago.

I think it is wonderful that the noble Afghans are wobbling up on their hind legs and mimicking real folks. Lets just slip out unnoticed without embarrassing them with a formal farewell and leave them to their success.

Like the good socialists Ignatius is, it’s all about material considerations and zippo about the spiritual, moral, or ethical ones that define a society we won’t have to clean up again.

Dusty on January 17, 2013 at 7:34 PM

Bada-bing, bada-BOOM.

To rephrase a movie totle, “Nail polish, schools, and shaving” is not why we are superior to them. We are superior because we are capable of being civilized and they are not, and ‘civilized’ does not merely consist of having enough toys.

Their entire barbaric culture is inferior from top to bottom. THAT is what will be their downfall when we have to leave.